Why Are Webmasters Blasé About The Security of Their Blogs?

If you’ve read this blog, or the posts on my Top Design Blogs service blog, you’ll know I bang on about WordPress security quite a bit.

Yet, webmasters don’t seem too concerned that their WordPress blogs are potentially vulnerable to being hacked. I offer a free service over at Top Design Blogs that tests 8 potential weaknesses on a blog but few webmasters take me up on the offer.

So is there an attitude out there that hacking is something that only happens to other people? That the likelihood of your particular blog being hacked is so small that it’s something you can worry about another day?

I’ve had blogs hacked in the past because I wasn’t familiar enough with WordPress security and the ease with which hackers can compromise an unsecured blog. And I know the pain and downright frustration involved in trying to recover a hacked blog. And let me tell you, not all blogs can be recovered.

It may require rolling back to a previously backed up copy of the blog…if one exists. If you rely on your webhost to look after backups for you, you could be in for a rude awakening when you think you need to avail of them.

Or maybe you do have a way to backup your blogs yourself (you should do) but have been too lazy to set everything up.

Whatever the reason, you end up with a compromised, hacked or hijacked blog, that not only costs you time and energy to fix, it may also cost money (hiring an expert like me) and in addition, your brand gets damaged as well.

Matt Garrett is also a seasoned WordPress pro and in his video above he shows you around some hacked sites to show you what hackers really do under the bonnet.

Some Statistics

The volume and frequency of attacks nowadays is simply scary, it has more than doubled since December 2012.

Hacking activity set to double again this year alone.

So far this yearhackers have broken every record to date…162,000 WordPress sites were hacked (that’s 5,226 per day). And that was in just one attack in March alone.

Hackers have found new ways of amplifying the attacks to make them even more destructive.

CNN, Forbes, Obamacare, Daft Punk, ECC, Angry Birds, EA Games have all been hacked in the 1st quarter of 2014 & that’s with security experts at hand.

“Hackers are now playing more destructive games by implanting fake login pages, fake shops, spam relays and very nasty malware” – Matt says…”Most webmasters don’t even know their sites have been hacked – it takes an average of 162 days for a webmaster to spot a problem, 3 days to fix it and 1 in 4 hacked sites are never recovered.”

Matt’s product BlogDefender has an impressive “0” hacked site track record since it was first released in 2012. The way I add security to my and my clients blogs is very similar. Matt has the product here, I don’t, and because his methodolgy is very similar to my own, I can recommend this if WordPress security is important to you (as it should be). If you want a free copy of my WordPress Security Bible ebook, simply sign up for my mailing list at Top Design Blogs).

Don’t assume your blog won’t be targeted. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”. And you should do everything you can to prevent damage occurring to a virtual property you’ve invested time, energy and money into.